Trouble Shooting
The longer a person spends on a task, the more likely they tend to be to have an incident involving injury, death, or destruction of property. Reduce the amount of times frustration leads to harm by learning effective trouble shooting. See the Safety First. Safety Always. page before attempting ANY troubleshooting. What Is Troubleshooting And Its Ultimate Goal? Troubleshooting is the process that systematically leads the troubleshooter to the cause of an observable symptom (i.e. battery not charging or a seal that repeatedly leaks after each replacement). It could involve simply your knowledge and experience of a system, or many hours of following a flow chart, schematics, parts manuals etc. You may find that some form of maintenance was neglected, or an earlier "field expedient" repair was made and has now failed. The goal of the troubleshooter is to find the cause of the problem(s) and make corrections to ensure that they do not reoccur. Steps To Effective Troubleshooting This list is typical of steps for trouble shooting. You may find that the mystery is solved at step four, or by following step five you may find that during a recent repair someone had pinched a wire while working on an unrelated component to the one you have trouble with. The further you find yourself in the steps the more step one increases in its importance. You may understand how a system or component works in general, but until you complete steps six and later, you may not have a deep enough understanding to come to the conclusion that will prevent the problem from reoccurring. #Understand the system #Confirm the fault, speak with the operator #Write down all observable symptoms #Check for any obvious problems (loose connections, fasteners or poor adjustment) #Check trouble codes, maintenance history and ensure all servicing and adjustments are up to date #Gather any relevant documents including Service, Operation, Parts manuals AND Operator Log Books #Give yourself a more in depth understanding of the system, enough that you can visualize what is supposed to happen if the system is working correctly (See the quotation below to see if you understand the system) #Compare your conclusion of how the system should work to how it is working or not working and with your new understanding of the system and pinpoint the cause problem (If you cannot, repeat step seven) #Complete your repair, adjustment, servicing or replacement of malfunctioning part #Confirm the repair and return to service The above steps apply to any situation where there is a problem. Read The Art of War or How to Win Friends and Influence People and you will find very similar instructions. ="If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”= ― Albert Einstein A Word On Maintenance For beginners - Learn from the beginning to pay attention to scheduled maintenance including any periodic lubrication, linkage or bearing adjustments. This goes beyond just changing lubricants. It includes treating rubber seals, adjusting drive belts or chains, replacing timing belts and speaking with the operator of the equipment to search for hints of recurring problems. The scheduled maintenance documents should be reviewed and compared to any equipment history to ensure it is all up to date. For experienced technicians and DIY'ers - Learn from the beginners. Category:Troubleshooting Category:Field Expedient Repairs